Probe Shifting From ‘Mr. Big’ Theory

Eight weeks after the nation’s worst terrorist bombing, investigators appear to be shifting away from a theory that a broad conspiracy, perhaps involving six to 12 people headed by a single mastermind, was responsible for the devastating Oklahoma City blast.

Although U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said Thursday it is “very important that we leave no stone unturned … we want to keep an open mind,” another federal source said of the current cast of characters in the Oklahoma City case: “What you see now may be what you get … there may not be a Mr. Big.”

The comments came the day after the government grudgingly admitted that it had found “John Doe No. 2” - the husky man pictured in series of composite sketches distributed by the FBI as part of a nationwide manhunt - and had determined that he had nothing to do with the bombing.

John Doe No. 2 turned out to be Army Pvt. Todd Bunting of Fort Riley, Kan., who happened to have visited a Junction City, Kan., auto body shop with a friend the day before the truck involved in the bombing was rented there.

The FBI sketches of John Doe No. 2 were based primarily on the Ryder rental agent’s description. But witnesses elsewhere in Kansas and Oklahoma said they had seen someone resembling the sketch of John Doe No. 2 with suspect Timothy McVeigh before the April 19 bombing, so authorities were careful not to rule out any possibility.

Reno, asked at her weekly news conference about such accounts, said, “We can’t comment in terms of what might be out there because we do not want to foreclose any of the other leads that we have with respect to whether there was a second person involved.

McVeigh, 27, and Terry Nichols, 40, are the only people charged in the federal office building bombing, which killed 168 people. They are being held without bail at a federal prison in El Reno, Okla.